


So Glad for the Madness

by sarkywoman



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Horror, M/M, violence typical of norse myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 16:29:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: For the Tony Stark 2018 Bingo on tumblr, prompt 'present tense'.And this. Whatever this was. He had felt it then, its tendrils snaking across space maliciously. Not actual physical tentacles but something about the presence puts him in mind of them as he stares at the swirling storm in the distance. Whatever it is puts him in mind of words like ‘slithering’, ‘creeping’, ‘crawling’…After a bizarre nightmare Tony wakes to find the Universe under siege from a threat from beyond realms.





	So Glad for the Madness

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Cradle of Filth's 'Babalon AD'.

Tony does not know where he is. It is dark and he floats. When he reaches out he touches nothing. He sees a speck of light in the distance. Then another. He turns his head and far away, sees a spread of shimmering cloud, like a smear of colour on the…

...on the cosmos. He is in space.

Panic grips him, squeezes his heart in his chest. The missile. The portal. The _void_.

And in the distance he can hear something. That can’t be possible, so maybe it’s his pulse thumping through him.

It doesn’t sound like his pulse. It sounds like a chant. Or a death-rattle. Both. A rhythm of ominous malice laid over something rumbling and sick and terrible. 

It’s getting louder. 

He can’t see where it’s coming from. He can’t see anything out here but the dark and the little lights and…

The little lights are vanishing. One by one they disappear, the little sparks swept into the distant dark. 

Something is coming.

Somehow he twists and he finds himself staring down at a huge green and blue sphere. His home. It isn’t so far from him.

Which means the thing out there isn’t so far from it. The groaning, grinding dirge grows louder still.

But wait, he shouldn’t be able to hear anything in space.

_“Some of us hear so much more than we should, Stark. Do not talk yourself out of hearing truth when it murmurs in your ear. Do not wait for it to scream.”_

That voice is familiar, but he can’t place it. He twists and turns his head but there is nobody around him. It wouldn’t make sense even if there were, sound doesn’t travel in space.

Wait, how is he breathing?

 

Tony sits upright with a sudden gasp, gulping down air to avoid suffocation in his own bedroom. It is a relief to see walls. He looks around at every solid thing, grabs a handful of his duvet and tries to calm down.

He ends up working rather than going back to sleep. The nightmare stays with him, not melting away under the bright lights of his workshop. The only part that starts to elude him is the voice that spoke so clearly in his ear. After a while of trying to pinpoint the identity of the speaker he is forced to accept that he no longer remembers the accent or the words. 

Eventually, after a few hours, his work does its trick, providing a distraction that draws him away from insubstantial horrors into the material world. 

Slowly the dream dwindles in importance.

At least until he sleeps again, twenty-seven hours later, and finds himself once more in the void.

Fewer stars, he notices immediately. He feels cold and does not think it is space causing that chill.

He sees… something. In the distance. A different shade of darkness. Squinting does not bring it into focus.

_“Will you be able to stand it, I wonder? I imagine not. Not so close. Your warning has come far too late._

Although he can’t figure out quite what he’s looking at, his stomach starts to twist. His breaths come quickly, like when he thinks of carrying a missile through a hole in the Universe. He had seen the crafts there, the alien creatures and another part of the Universe and--

And this. Whatever this was. He had felt it then, its tendrils snaking across space maliciously. Not actual physical tentacles but something about the presence puts him in mind of them as he stares at the swirling storm in the distance. Whatever it is puts him in mind of words like ‘slithering’, ‘creeping’, ‘crawling’…

_“Maddening.”_

As if hearing his invisible companion, it twists in on itself.

It looks at him. 

Tony sees it. Oh god, he sees it. He can’t close his eyes. He can’t breathe. He can’t scream.

 

He is screaming.

A hand on his face in a bright, ornate room, women he does not know hushing him kindly as his screams weaken to confused whimpers. His wrists are held immobile.

“Stark!”

Thor is there, a strong hand clapping against Tony’s shoulder as if to transfer strength through the touch. It’s reassuring, but there’s a tension in Thor’s expression, some sort of bad news waiting for Tony to settle before it can pounce.

“Where am I?” Tony looks up at the high ceiling and around at the golden-framed mirror and the stone floor. “Asgard?”

“Aye, well guessed!” Thor smiles and squeezes his shoulder again. It kind of hurts. The god nods to the plainly-dressed women – Maids? Nurses? - and they leave the room slowly. Once they are gone, Thor sits down on the bed at his side. The god begins to unfasten the leather straps holding Tony’s wrists to weights either side of the bed. “You have been most unwell, friend. I am sorry to say that the timing of your sickness was… unfortunate.”

“I was just asleep at home,” Tony says, fidgeting until he’s sitting upright. He rubs at his wrists, thought they’re not sore. “I had a bad dream but nothing life-threatening.” He really doesn’t like the pained look on Thor’s face. 

“At first you could not be woken. Then you would have moments of consciousness but they were not lucid times. You screamed and raved and attempted to harm yourself.”

“What? I don’t remember any of that.”

_“A blessing. Trust me. Mortal memory has thin walls. It leaks. You should not fill it with blood.”_

Tony whips his head to the right in search of the source of the voice. No one there. Only the open doors to the balcony, where the gauzy golden curtains dance lightly in the breeze.

“Stark?” Thor sounds concerned. “How do you feel now?”

“Fine.” Disturbed, but what’s new? 

“Good. The others will be pleased to see you. We are not hopeful, it must be said, but perhaps your mind will succeed where others have failed. If Asgard cannot be defended then Midgard will remain lost forever.”

Thor stands from the bed, his motions slow and weary, though he doesn’t stop until he reaches the doorway. Then he looks back, seemingly confused by Tony sitting there frozen. “Well? We must make haste.”

“What the hell do you mean by ‘lost forever’? Defend Asgard from what exactly?”

The god’s eyebrows raise. “You don’t know?” He sighs. “Forgive me, friend. With all that has happened, I was not told your malady occurred prior to the invasion. That… complicates matters.”

“Invasion?!”

“You had best come with me to the hall. We will do our best to explain.”

So he follows Thor down the beautiful halls of Asgard, feeling like a man out of time. Steve would probably begrudge the comparison. Tony hasn’t lost nearly so long. “So you don’t know how long I was out?”

“Nay, friend. We were told of the threat approaching Midgard and I came to lend aid.” Sorrow in Thor’s face as he goes on to say, “I was too late. The thing comes from beyond the worlds. It winds its way through minds and magic and tears at the very fabric of reality. We were forced to retreat with the best of Midgard’s heroes.”

“Nice to know I wasn’t demoted in my unconscious state,” Tony jokes.

Thor stops in his tracks and looks at him with undue seriousness. Then he turns back and takes a few steps back to a door on the right, which he opens. As soon as the wood leaves the doorframe Tony hears moans of pain and screams. He gestures for Tony to follow and enters the room.

Inside it is like a field hospital, but for the opulence of the decorations in the room. Fifty beds almost as plush as the one Tony has woken on, every one of them with a patient. 

The longer he looks, the more faces he recognises. Natasha. Clint. Fury. Bruce. Steve. All unconscious.

“We had hoped your earlier affliction might hold some answers to their condition,” Thor explains. “People began to suffer episodes as the creature took the planet. Global hysteria beyond that displayed during the Battle of New York. Those with existing mental disorders were the earliest to succumb.”

“Could explain me,” Tony mutters.

His friend looks confused. “I think not. Your sickness sounds as though it were sooner than that, even. And you have recovered.” He says that with cheer as the good news that it is, then almost immediately the smile fades. “Others on Midgard deteriorated further. Chanting in a most disturbed fashion. Or harming themselves fatally.”

Tony wanders to Natasha’s bed, as she is nearest to them. Her eyes are closed. He’s not allowed too close. A young man with floppy brown hair intercepts him.

“I wouldn’t, sir.”

“Wiccan, right?” He’s seen the kid on the news with his teenage superhero crew. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Well she’s my friend.”

“But--”

It’s too easy to duck around the kid to go to Natasha’s side. She has a deep frown on her face. Tony sighs at seeing her brought down like this.

Her eyes open and her hand snaps free of the bind at her side, going straight for his throat. Had she not snapped some fingers in the process, she would have undoubtedly done more than scratch her nails against his neck. 

Thor drags him back as Tony stares at her. His brilliant, strong, intelligent friend frothing at the mouth and screaming.

“END IT! END IT ALL! END IT NOW!”

She starts slapping at her own face, trying to coordinate broken fingers well enough to gouge at her own eyes. Wiccan steps forward and starts saying, “Black Widow sleep, Black Widow _sleep_...”

“She’s called Natasha,” Tony snaps. 

But the spell works and she loses consciousness again. The frown remains on her brow and he wonders if she is in there fighting whatever this is.

Thor lets go of him. “The heroes in this room attempted to fight the creature in a number of ways. All of them lost their minds.”

_“Not lost. Broke. Not irreparably. But oh, who has the time to perform such intricate work in such days as these? Who has the freedom to choose to help?”_

“Sir?”

Wiccan is looking at him nervously. It seems only Tony is hearing the voice. Great.

“Sorry, yeah. I’m fine. What were you saying?”

“Only that Doctor Strange seemed the nearest to answers.” Wiccan nods towards a bed in the corner where one of the Asgardian nurses checks Stephen Strange’s pulse. “He found out – independently from Asgard telling us – that the creature was from beyond this realm. He thought that with enough magic--”

“There is no such quantity,” a new voice intrudes. Precise and authoritarian. Its owner walks in with his head held high, one eye and pale beard giving Tony some idea of who he’s looking at. The armed guards support the hypothesis. 

“You must be All-Father Odin. Thor’s said so much.” He’s aiming for charming, but suspects it comes across as insincere.

Odin scowls at him. “Now is no time for talk, Man of Iron. The realms as we know them are being dragged into oblivion. Humanity is already decimated. Unless your mind is as brilliant as they say, it will soon be annihilated. Already the creature stirs, moves towards Asgard. Our magic will only shield us for so long. Then we will be destroyed as thoroughly as your people.”

Tony looks between Thor and his father and at Wiccan’s worried young face. “You’re expecting me to come up with something? I’m good, but… I just woke up. And, you know, magic isn’t really my forte.” Already running through ideas. How can he learn about magic? How quickly? Can someone teach him? What if it depends on something innate or biological and he doesn’t have it?

“Then we are all doomed,” Odin says gravely.

Thor’s mouth twists a little. “Maybe we should let--”

“No.”

Odin’s dismissal is so quick that this is clearly an old argument. Still, Tony’s curious. “No what?”

“My son thinks things cannot possibly be any worse. He is wrong.” Odin’s one eye stares Thor down the whole time. 

“O...kay? Well, if you want me to investigate magic you’re going to have to offer me some sort of resources.”

“You have free run of the palace and the option of speaking to her people,” Odin says. “Thor can show you to the libraries where our greatest sorcerers studied.”

“Like Loki?”

Thor winces. Odin glowers. “Clearly you need to learn more than we realised, Man of Iron. You should begin as soon as possible, though I will not put my faith in your fumbling quest. I will instead be preparing our warriors for battle and our civilians for evacuation.”

A manic laugh echoes through the room. Tony can’t see any of the patients are responsible for it. Nobody else bats an eye at it. Then he hears, _“Where will they evacuate to? Will they leave the Universe?”_ More laughter.

Perhaps his time asleep had more ill effects than they realised. He clears his throat. “Okay, so I’ll uh, spend some time investigating magic.”

“Look at wards first,” Wiccan says. “I’ll join you when I can, when things are calmer here. But you need to protect yourself. Doctor Strange was trying to look at its composition when it saw him. As soon as it looked at him he was lost. The last thing he said was only Asgard could save us.” Wiccan looks across the makeshift ward at all their ailing comrades. “The rest didn’t stand a chance. Not without magical intuition and a defensive ward. We didn’t even know it was coming until it was already there and people were already dying.”

“You managed to survive.”

“Yeah. Wards. Seriously. I’m a lot more cautious than Strange. I just… don’t know if they’d hold up under close range. I… I didn’t get as close as everyone else. I’m sorry.”

Tony recognises survivor’s guilt like an irritating long-term work acquaintance. He reaches out and pats Wiccan’s shoulder awkwardly. “You’re taking care of them now, kid. Just do your best.”

“Sound advice for us all,” Odin says archly. “We should all begin our work. I do not expect miracles from you, Stark. Occupy yourself with whatever pursuits you feel may sensibly pass the time before the creature reaches us. Asgard is a land of many mystical resources. I hope you have the time to enjoy it before we are killed. And if you wish to avoid that happening prematurely, I would suggest avoiding the dungeons, the arena and the cave beyond the palace grounds.”

“What’s in the cave?”

Odin looks at him like he’s a particularly annoying child. Well he can go ahead and try it, but Howard Stark was far more adept at the expression and it’s given Tony a high threshold. “Danger and nothing of use to us.”

The Allfather leaves. His armed guard follow, not even glancing back when Steve Rogers starts howling. 

“LET US BATHE IN THE COSMIC BLOOD!”

With a shudder Tony follows Thor out of the room. Leaves Wiccan to deal with it. God knows he certainly can’t.

 

The following days pass in a surreal fashion. There are moments where Tony wonders if he’s still dreaming. Or if he already died. Asgard is a beautiful ethereal place. He had always imagined if he saw it he would be in the constant company of the Avengers, or at least Thor. But Thor is busy with the warrior preparations. Since their conversation after Tony woke they have barely spoken. 

On the occasion they did, Thor said, “we are not ready. There is no way for me to make us ready. Our friends fell like insects before the beast. Like he fought a battle that they could not even see, let alone participate in. They were utterly defenceless. I fear I will soon watch my Asgardian fellows fall in a similar manner.”

_“They will fall slower. But they will fall. Divinity is but an umbrella against this tsunami.”_

Tony opened his lips to respond but stopped just in time. The last thing he wanted was for Thor to worry for his sanity.

It comes and goes, the voice. Drops in a sly comment here and there then falls silent for hours. 

His dreams are worse. He floats above the Earth and hears nothing but screaming. Sometimes he floats by the gigantic roots of a bizarrely large tree, beneath a golden world.

It’s getting nearer, he knows.

He tells Wiccan about his dreams, when the boy has left the Asgardian sorceress Enchantress watching the patients. After some deep consideration, Wiccan – or Billy, as he’s asked to be called in what may be their final days – shakes his head. 

“I don’t understand it. All magic users started experiencing odd sensations before it attacked. But they were intuitions, vague.”

“A magical spider-sense,” Tony says, voice flat as he thinks of another hero lying in that room. One who looked up to him. Who should have outlasted him, if there were any such thing as justice in this world. These worlds. Whatever.

“Nothing so sure as a psychic connection.”

“Could be coincidence.”

Billy smiles slightly. “You don’t believe that. You said yourself, it looked at you. Then you started experiencing the same symptoms as everyone else, but before it even arrived. You saw it in your dreams. And it saw you.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m less affected. I didn’t encounter it in its raw form while I was conscious. I was asleep and distant.”

“Perhaps.”

“When do you have to go back on magic nurse duty?”

“Not for a little while yet. Me, Enchantress and Doom are splitting shifts.”

“Strange days we’re experiencing, Billy. Strange days.”

The boy nods. After a little more silence, he says, “they’re sending an advance force to deal with the creature.”

“That’s suicide!”

“They’re Asgardian. They’re not going to sit around and wait for death.”

Tony sighs. Between them the ancient desk is stacked high with books and scrolls and orbs and runes. Magic continues to defy his learning strategies. The bits and pieces he’s found that are relevant tell him little they don’t already know. 

“There has to be something here. It’s the freakin’ land of the gods. And Odin says they can’t amass the magical power you say we need.”

“Doctor Strange said it was here, what we needed,” Billy says. “He’s the Sorcerer Supreme. He wouldn’t get it wrong.”

“But...” Tony has a thought. Not a full and thoroughly-considered one, but enough of one to form a question. He leaves his seat, lets Wiccan call after him as he strides down to the arena he’s been told not to approach. 

To be fair to the Allfather, an arrow does nearly take Tony’s nose off as he passes inadvisably close. Then Thor is there, dragging him to the side. “My friend, you were asked to stay away for your own safety.”

“Yeah, I get that now. Who told you about the creature?”

“What?”

“You said you were told the creature was approaching. Who told you? Did someone else on Earth get advance warning? Wiccan said nobody even knew it was there until it attacked.”

Thor looks awkward. “Asgard… has ways of knowing.”

“Nuh-uh. You said you were _told_.”

“My father is the Allfather, Stark. All-seeing.”

“But he can’t see a way to stop this.”

“He sees one way. But it poses even greater threat. So we will fight.”

“Is it magic? He said there wasn’t enough magic to stop this thing, but Wiccan seems to think that Strange thought that we could find the solution here.”

“Magic has a cost, Stark. It is not noble. It does not win battles it simply…” Thor pauses to think. “Feeds on them. Even if we could find enough power to fight this creature on its own terms, such magic would be terrible and the ensuing battle would almost certainly result in great madness for the wielder. My father is right.” Thor nods. “Now fare me well, my friend. I journey out with these brave warriors at the dawn.”

“You’re actually going to attack this thing?!”

For once Thor seems to lack conviction. “There is little choice. It has begun to gnaw at Yggdrasil, winding its way around the branches between worlds. Soon it will be here. We are out of time.”

Tony has no way of convincing his friend to stay. Not when there is no other plan, no back-up. He has to wish Thor luck knowing that it’s futile.

When he returns alone to the room he has been borrowing he sweeps all of his resources from the desk to the floor. Wiccan has left, presumably to nap before his shift as witch doctor, so he doesn’t witness the tantrum. 

He doesn’t expect to be able to sleep himself, but after another hour’s research he finds his head keeps nodding towards the desk.

A little while later he finds himself sitting on the shimmering rainbow bridge, legs hanging over the side. It’s almost peaceful, until he sees the void beneath. 

“Okay seriously, is this thing haunting me?”

_“It certainly won’t leave you. It never does. You are lucky to come away so unscathed.”_

Closing his eyes, Tony focuses on the voice. “Who are you?”

_“Don’t ask things you already know. It’s boring.”_

“Can you help? With what’s happening?”

_“I would already have done so.”_

“Do you serve any purpose other than annoying me?”

 _“I shielded you from the...”_ A pause. _“I had best not speak its name.”_

“So you’re to thank for my sanity. What’s left of it. I’m grateful. Why not speak its name? Is it like Voldemort? Will its name summon it?”

_“Its name would send you mad. Perhaps not irretrievably, but why risk it?”_

“But you know its name.”

_“You brushed by the portal and its terrors. I fell in entirely. There is nowhere further for me to fall._

“Why can’t you help?”

_“The wretch has me bound.”_

“The creature?”

_“No. Not the creature.”_

Tony feels an unusual clarity. Perhaps it’s just his dream-state. But things start to look a little more straightforward. “So if you were free, you would help?”

_“What would I gain in return?”_

And there it was. The devil’s pact awaited his signature. 

Tony thinks of his friends howling. Of Earth screaming. What can he lose that is worse than that?

“What would you want?”

_“Everything you can give me.”_

“Yeah. Okay.”

 

He wakes to a din and sounds of chaos. He makes his way out of his workspace to find people rushing through the halls with wounded warriors. He allows himself to be swept along in the stream of them, helping to steady an injured blond warrior that he thinks he recognises from some moment before now. A friend of Thor’s, maybe. 

It is anarchy at the medical chambers. They have taken in so many sick and injured refugees from the other realms that they have no room for Asgardians. It is decided through harried conversation between the healers that other rooms can be arranged and reorganised, but how quickly, who can be spared to do it…

Tony moves to volunteer but the man he has been aiding grips his arm and meets his eyes. He whispers, “Loki.” As if it is a message in itself.

“Uh...”

“He’s the only one who could save us. Odin had him bound, so afraid was he of his son’s potential. He’s… insane, but he may well be our only hope.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to reach him. I’ve tried to get down to the dungeons twice already just to see what the fuss was about. Odin’s guards blocked me both times. Even with my suit those guys and the dungeon security would be tricky.”

The man looks away, down to the ground. “He isn’t in the dungeons. I wish that he were.”

“What do you mean, you wish he were?”

There’s no doubting the sorrow on the man’s face. “If he were only imprisoned we could free him and the bitterness would pass. Some punishments cannot be so easily undone.”

As Tony parts his lips to ask another question, Odin’s voice falls heavy in the room. “Fandral! What happened to my son?”

Despite the pain, the man tries to stand smartly before his king. “He sent me back once I was injured, Allfather. I was not present when… when it...” He swallows. “I’m sorry.”

Odin rubs a hand over his face. “These are dark days.”

He storms away. Tony follows. He watches from afar as Thor is brought in by a dozen soldiers like a leashed beast. Lightning crashes over the palace and sparks from Thor’s hands as he thrashes and howls and screams that the Ragnarok is upon them. 

While the palace is distracted and grieving and frightened, Tony takes his leave. There are no signposts outside the golden city. He is forced to ask the terrified people that he passes, none of whom are willing to tell him. In fact, they look even more terrified when he tells him what he is looking for.

The storm does not make things easier. Rain drenching him endlessly while the air perpetually rumbles with thunder and lightning lashing at the land in a fury. Thor’s madness has poisoned his power and when Asgard falls it will do so to the sound of their favourite god’s helpless rage.

Then Tony notices where the lightning is striking. The old Earth saying of it never striking the same place twice is disproven as it hits the same mountain ten times.

Tony makes his way there. The walk is deceptively long. Whenever he looks up the mountain seems just as far away as before, though he knows that is not the case.

He has been walking for nearly an hour when a crack appears across the sky. The sun begins to dim. The rainbow bridge, far from where he stands but visible across nearly all Asgard, begins to fracture. 

_Things_ begin to seep through the crack in the sky.

Looking away quickly, Tony breaks into a run. The mountain has been looming over him for some time and he can see the dark entrance at the base not too far now. He slips in the mud and his lungs are burning but he keeps running. What he wouldn’t give for his suit now. Even just the boots and gloves.

He’s gulping air as he reaches the cave, even though it stinks. He can hear shouts of pain inside, interspersed with hysterical laughter. He leans against the wall and glances back against his better judgement.

A creature the size of Stark Tower with eyes across its body is slowly consuming the palace.

Quickly he looks back. He feels dizzy. And sick and… could that be real? How could it be real?

He turns his head again to take another look but is stopped by a sound in his head.

_“Come inside. Now.”_

Right. Of course. Tony steps into the cave. 

It is dimly lit. An odd greenish hue to the light. It soon becomes apparent why. A substance is smeared across the walls, glowing green like radiation from a cartoon. Tony reaches out to touch it.

“Don’t!”

The voice is not in his head. Tony takes a few steps further around the rocky tunnel. It opens into a small cavern. The source of the green substance is curled around rocky ledges in the ceiling, a large snake with the venom dripping from its fangs. Tony’s gaze follows a droplet as it grows large on a pointed tooth then falls into a puddle on Loki’s pale skin, sizzling at the flesh and bubbling. 

Loki’s father put him here. Bound with chains and what looked like _innards_ while acid burns his flesh. How long has he been here? Helpless, tortured… No wonder Odin doesn’t want to let him out. Who wants to free someone who has such justified anger and hatred?

As another drop of venom wells up in the snake’s maw, Tony notices a dish on the ground. He reaches for it but Loki’s voice stops him.

“Leave it! Don’t touch that bloody thing. It’s part of the torture. You’d be stood here forever catching drops and achieving nothing. Just...” He stops with a groan of pain.

“Your father did this. And I thought I had daddy issues.”

Loki is clothed in black leather leggings, black leather wrap around his wrists and hands and a green tunic. All are full of holes and scorched due to the dripping of the venom. The snake seems to aim for the chest. The hole there is huge, the skin bloody and burned beneath. As Tony watches, another drop burns Loki’s pale skin. 

Okay, that does it. He grabs the dish.

“Stark, no!”

And _hurls_ the thing at the snake. He expects to knock it from his perch.

The dish cuts through it effortlessly. Venom spurts from the two halves as they flop from the perch then twitch on the ground. 

Loki swears, the last spill of venom burning across his body.

“Sorry.” Tony moves over to the bound god.

“Don’t be. You have done something no other has ever done for me.”

“Maybe that can be the trade-off for the save?” He asks with hope.

Eyes green as the venom look at him with amusement and Tony knows it isn’t to be. He has already agreed to so much more in his desperation.

Tony looks over the chains for a while. Then he has to ask. “Are those intestines?”

“Yes. My father slaughtered my children and used their insides to bind me.”

“Holy _shit_.”

“Indeed.”

“You seem very calm about it.”

Loki laughs. It’s manic. “I have been here a while. Eventually one does emerge on the other side of madness.”

“Well freeing you to save the day is so crazy it just might work, so I guess we’re working on the same principles.”

“They got Thor,” Loki says as Tony uses his penknife to hack at the disgusting bindings. 

“Yeah.”

“I can feel him reaching for me. Begging for me to help now his father has failed him.” 

The lightning and thunder continue to crash outside of the cave as Tony works. Once the gross organic binds are dealt with he gets to work picking the lock of the metal chains. Then he notices the magical inscriptions. Without hesitation he goes to the snake and uses his knife to cut into its jaw. The fang burns his thumb and forefinger as he tugs it out, but there’s no time to complain about it. He brings it back to the lock.

“My, my,” Loki purrs. “Someone has been studying the mystic arts.”

“This is about my limit,” Tony says. “I prefer science that doesn’t depend on the psychology of the scientist.”

Loki chuckles. The fang, when pushed into the lock, pops the thing open without effort. Loki sits up, shaking the chains free.

“You should be grateful that magic is shaped by the mind of its wielder, Stark.”

“Oh?”

“Oh yes.” Loki reaches out, curling his black-nailed fingers and stroking his knuckles gently down Tony’s cheek. “It means everyone in this Universe has a hope in hell.”

“Because of you.”

Loki turns and starts walking from the cave. Tony follows close behind.

“Because of us. You freed me.”

“Why me? You called me.”

“No. The void called you. I simply eavesdropped.”

“The… void.”

The god turns back to him and places a hand over his arc reactor. Looks him in the eye. “We will _never_ be clean of its stain. In the normal worlds, Earth, Asgard, to name but two, this is a problem. It is a distorting lens between us and them.”

Tony thinks of panic attacks and nightmares and the paranoia that drove Pepper away from him. The pity in the eyes of Avengers who could never understand. The feeling of terrible destiny with a hand around his throat. Loki nods at whatever he sees in his eyes.

“You know of what I speak. But there are other worlds, worlds beyond the ones most known, where an altered perspective is desirable. Necessary. Worlds where the realm itself is distorted and broken.”

“And they’re from one of those worlds?”

“Correct. That is why the mere sight of them causes such… confusion.”

“Will we be able to save the afflicted?”

“Well, that depends on whether you hold up your side of our deal.”

As they walk away from the cave, Tony notices that their path is lit. Then he notices he is mistaken and it is the area around them that is darkened, like a shadow cast over the ground. As they move forward the darkness retreats, like shade being retracted, like the opening of a sunroof. They’re chasing shadow.

“They don’t want to be near me,” Loki explains with a wry smile.

Tony dares to glance up at the things from afar. They still look horrific, horrendous, but… no longer mind-bending. Just monstrous. “Are you telling me they’re _scared_ of you?”

When Loki smiles at him, teeth sharp and eyes glowing with magic and madness, Tony completely understands. 

When they approach the palace, Tony stands back with only the sword from a corpse they had found en-route.

He watches, though it feels like witnessing the void again.

Loki walks with his head held high in his tattered clothes. His wounds have healed during the walk back from the cave. When a creature lashes at him he is cut to the bone.

The god laughs and heals it.

“Do you think I fear you? I, who has experienced your world in eight senses?”

Relinquishing its grip on the palace, the largest creature screams. Across Asgard people fall to their knees. One tone in the scream is like a finger on the rim of a wine glass. At another level it sounds like a wailing infant. There is another sound underscoring it like something Tony has never heard before. It does not bring him to his knees. He feels strong while Loki stands. The psychology of magic is a total placebo, but it works.

As the scream ends, it gives way to laughter. Loki’s almost-hysterical laughter. “I’m sorry, was that a war-cry? A threat? Because it _sounded_ like fear.”

Another lash. This time it is a wall of force that knocks Loki completely off of his feet and staggers Tony, even from a distance.

“Resorting to the manifestation of physical force?” Loki says as he pushes himself upright once more. “How beneath you. I’m disappointed.”

All of the eyes roll on the creature then, one by one turning to focus on Loki. Tony starts to feel the roiling of his gut again. Looking at these creatures is like looking into the abyss and then when they look back… it’s bad. The sound of whispering grows louder and louder. More and more whispers until Tony is clasping his hands over his ears.

Loki stands very still, his head tilted aside like he’s listening to something. Then he nods. Tony hears him say, clear as day even with his hands over his ears, “well yes, I know all that already. Is that what you think to torture me with? There is no darkness in me I have not dissected and chosen to keep. There are few tortures you could conceive of that I have not already experienced and even those I would adapt to. You are from beyond this world but I have been beyond even that.” He looks back to Tony and smiles. “I emerged from the other side.”

He takes a step closer to the beast and it flinches. On a creature that size the small motion is instantly obvious.

Magic crackles around Loki’s feet, green flashes of light that also dance at his fingertips.

“Must I banish you? You thought you waited long enough for the magic to be forgotten. You thought waiting until my imprisonment would save you. That human curiosity and weakness would invite you in and give you a foothold in these realms. But you forgot that while humans always gravitate to the worst possible predator… _that is not you anymore_. Not after the things I have seen. The things I have been through. These worlds are mine.”

It isn’t about power. It’s about resilience. It’s sheer bloody-mindedness weaponised. The embodiment of a spirit that keeps asking, “and _then_ what?” Loki may be a god, but to Tony his resistance feels so very human. He is not deflecting, not withstanding in the typical godlike fashion of shiny armour and skin more durable than diamond.

He is suffering. And he stands before these things and laughs, dares them to cause pain beyond his ability to survive it.

Their minds, their moralities, even their forms, are too alien for human comprehension.

But a void-touched God defies _their_ comprehension. 

A few smaller ones lash out at Loki in ways hard to define. Tony feels it, phantom pain or pressure as he sees blurs near the god. But they seem to disappear shortly after, as if it took all their power to strike at Loki.

“I can invent tortures for you too, you know,” Loki says, voice low. “You think it so impossible? I could trap you in a mortal frame and teach you what pain is. Would you like that?”

The crack in the sky widens, but Loki looks up at it with a smile. 

“Thought not. Go on then.”

He waves a hand and there is a shadow like something moving swiftly past the sun. Then it is a bright, sunny day in Asgard once more.

Tony takes a step forward, then breaks into a run when Loki falls to his knees. He skids to his knees beside him on the ground. “Are they gone? Are you okay?”

“Yes and no. But the latter is irrelevant. I am never okay.”

“Alright emo-kid. Well, you did good.”

Loki smiles. “And soon you’ll strike the details from your mind. If you haven’t already.”

“Hey now, give me some credit. You threatened it and it backed down. I remember.”

Still Loki has that damned smile. “What did it look like?”

“It had uh… it was big.” What did it look like? It’s a blur.

“And what did it whisper?”

“Stuff about you. I… I can’t remember.”

“Don’t worry. It’s your mortal mind taking care of you. I envy that. A photographic memory and an inquisitive mind served me very, very poorly in the worlds beyond.”

“Can you stand? Can we help the others?”

Loki rises with grace and brushes himself down. He looks over himself, pondering for a moment, then waves a hand. His clothes are made better than new.

“Let us see what can be done.”

 

The answer to that turned out to be ‘everything’. Loki accompanies the healers around every bed, laying magic across the brows of the afflicted and bringing them back to themselves. When they reach Thor, the big guy throws his arms around his brother with glee.

“You have saved us all, brother. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Stark owes me now.”

And the smile falters on Thor’s lips. He looks past his brother to where Tony stands in the doorway. “You made a pact.”

“Seemed the only way to save the day.”

Thor looks in his little brother’s eyes. “Will you harm him?”

“Eventually, I’m sure.”

It obviously isn’t the answer Thor had wanted.

 

Tony’s devil’s deal isn’t brought up again until the next day, once Asgard and her inhabitants have all been made well. Presiding over a throne room of courtiers and soldiers, Odin orders that Loki be imprisoned once more.

Thor protests. “But father--”

“No! His crimes outweigh his recent moment of heroism. A moment, might I add, that was mere territorial posturing. Your brother’s madness and power combine to create a monster that even the things from beyond the void fear! He must be bound!”

“That won’t be possible, I’m afraid,” Loki says, seemingly unfazed by the reprimand. “Stark has guaranteed to fight for my freedom.”

Everything he could give, he had promised. Fighting Asgard is definitely within his power, though he might not win. The Avengers are looking at him like he’s lost the plot, so he explains, “it was a condition of getting his help.”

Natasha nods, while the others still seem concerned. “Okay. Desperate times...”

“Exactly.”

Loki continues. “So I will return with him to Earth. It seems to me that they could use some better magical protection, given the recent events.”

There are mutterings and whispers in the crowd, but Odin himself sits silent for a long while. If he fights this, he might be fighting all of the Avengers. Pitting himself against his Earth allies. Loki has made a nice little political mess for him. With Tony’s help.

But Tony remembers a stinking cave of venom and entrails of a child. He puts a hand to Loki’s back.

“They won’t put you back there.”

“I know. You won’t allow it.”

Odin relents. “Very well. This pact will last one mortal life. I can wait.”

Loki’s laugh echoes in the throne room. “We’ll see.”

Tony has to ignore the misgivings on the faces of his friends as they walk with Loki out to the bifrost.

 

Two weeks later, Tony wakes from yet another nightmare that slips through his fingers once he wakes. He has been plagued with them since their return, remembering only green eyes and the certainty that he has made a mistake. 

Now, in the darkness of his room, he sees those green eyes watching him.

Loki walks over to the bed and presents a small, glowing orb. It’s faintly golden.

“What is that?”

“An apple.”

“Why are you offering me an apple?”

“I am not offering. I am demanding you eat it.”

Tony thinks of stories of the faeries, entrapping humans for all eternity through the consumption of magical items.

“We had a deal,” Loki says firmly, when Tony does not take the apple.

“So we did.”

It’s sweet, the apple. Sweet syrupy juice fills his mouth as he eats.

Loki watches.

Tony thinks again of the faeries. How the monsters in those old stories were more beguiling than giant monstrosities with hundreds of eyes. He thinks about how magic is psychology and magic is power. He remembers how Odin was more frightened of Loki’s freedom than he was of the beasts that could devour his palace. 

Once he has finished the apple – Loki insists he eat even the core – he settles back against his pillows. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

“Not tonight.” Loki draws Tony’s blanket aside and straddles him. “I’d like to give you something in return for all you will give me.”

“What makes you think I want that?” Tony asks, voice low. Still a little suspicious that this is Loki asking more of him, not the reverse. Not sure that it really changes how willing he is. He thought he had been subtle about it.

“Humans always gravitate to the worst possible predator,” Loki murmurs, his fingers dancing around the arc reactor.

And he has promised this one everything.

“You won’t even kill me though, will you?” He asks as his hands go to Loki’s narrow hips.

“Probably not. Though you may wish I had.”

Loki smiles, eyes gleaming in the darkness. 

Tony sighs. “You never did get out the other side, did you? Of the void? A part of you is still there.”

The god shakes his head, still smiling. “I carry it with me. In my head. Wherever I go.” He leans down. “Tell me if you can taste it.”

And he can.

God help him, he can.


End file.
